Murray Smith, Paris
The movement of French students and workers against the right-wing French government's new First Employment Contract (CPE) law is entering a decisive phase. The law was approved by parliament on March 10, and allows employers to sack young people aged under 26 during their first two years in a job without giving any reason.
Opinion polls are now showing that at least 68% of French voters and 80% of the young people who will be directly affected by the new law, are in favour of its withdrawal. Even the prestigious Paris daily Le Monde, reflecting the pressure of public opinion and a desire to avoid further political polarisation, in its March 21 editorial called for the "annulment or suspension of the reform".
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin is now in a quandary. Up until March 23, he was refusing to budge, reportedly calculating — or hoping — that the movement had reached its high point and that the unions would not go as far as a general strike to defeat the CPE. For De Villepin, defeat over the CPE would be a severe and perhaps fatal blow to his ambitions to run in next year's presidential election. But cracks are now visible in his government and in his parliamentary majority.
De Villepin has been supported, perhaps reluctantly, by President Jacques Chirac, who cannot abandon his protege but who nevertheless called on March 20 for the unions to engage in "a constructive and confident dialogue in this spirit which can allow improving the CPE", an appeal aimed especially at the moderate CFDT union confederation. Three days later, De Villepin invited the unions to meet him "as quickly as possible".
The unions said the March 24 meeting with de Villepin had served no purpose, as he was still refusing to withdraw the CPE. The five union confederations recognised by the state as "representatives" asked De Villepin to allow the Intersyndicale — the whole of the union united front, including the other three unions and the four student organisations — to also attend the meeting, but he refused. However De Villepin invited the student unions to a meeting on March 25, which they declined due to his refusal to withdraw the CPE.
The government has also been meeting with employers' organisations. On March 20 a delegation of 20 French business leaders met with De Villepin and suggested modifying the CPE by reducing the period when an employee could be sacked from two years to one and obliging employers to give a reason — while still leaving them the right to sack young employees at will. But divisions are appearing between the big employers, who can afford to be more flexible, and the small and medium-sized enterprises, which are less wiling to compromise over the CPE.
Interior minister (and leading presidential contender) Nicolas Sarkiozy is calling for a compromise solution. Perhaps the government will have to agree to modify some aspects of the CPE in order to maintain the essence of it. What is certain is that what is making De Villepin back down from his hitherto arrogant stance is neither an editorial in Le Monde nor the solicitations of "enlightened" employers. It is the continuing pressure of the mass movement against the law, and dialogue or no dialogue, this pressure will need to be maintained and stepped up, and the most effective way to step it up would be a massive one-day general strike.
From this point, of view the result of the meeting between representatives of the trade union confederations and the student unions on March 20 was not as clear-cut as it might have been. For the sake of maintaining a united union front and keeping the less militant unions on board, the call was not clearly for a one-day general strike, but for a day of "demonstrations, strikes and work stoppages" on March 28.
In the meantime, the student movement is still gathering pace. According to the National Union of Students of France (UNEF), 65 of the country's 84 universities are now wholly or partially blockaded. On March 16, a national day of student protest, 500,000 students marched all over France, chanting, "Villepin, you're beaten, the youth are in the streets".
On March 18, some 1.5 million workers and students mobilised for 150 protests around the country. In Paris, chants of "Students and workers, together for solidarity" rang out from a demonstration numbering at least 250,000.
On March 20, 313 high schools were shut down as a result of anti-CPE blockades. By the following day, 814 schools were affected bvy some form of protest action. This represented around 19% of all French high schools. The school students union FIDL said that around 25% of high schools were wholly or partially blocked by students, and that some of them had been occupied. Mass assemblies of school students — sometimes drawing as many as 1500 people — have been held in schools across the country to debate the CPE.
On March 23, student demonstrations around the country mobilised 450,000 protesters.
Whatever the ambiguities of the call for March 28, it is vital that the strikes on that day are massive. One encouraging sign is that the CFDT and the more militant CGT unions of the Paris public transport system have issued a strike call for March 28. Workers at Societe Nationale des Chemins de Fer de France, or SNCF, which manages the national railways and part of the French capital's suburban train network, and at Reseau Autonome des Transports Parisiens, which governs the 16 lines of the Paris subway, said they'll walk out of work on March 28.
On March 22, unions filed strike notices at Utilities Gaz de France and Electricite de France. Similar notices were filed by unions at Total, Europe's third-largest oil company.
It is now clear that it is possible for the movement to force the withdrawal of the CPE, if the students and the trade unions remain united around this demand.
[Murray Smith is a member of the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) of France.]
From Green Left Weekly, March 29, 2006.
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